Friday, September 26, 2008

Spent a toasty afternoon at Disney TVA, the Main Lot edition. Outside on Dopey Drive and inside the courtyard of the Frank Wells Building, the company was holding a whomping big "tech fair." Hot dogs. Ice cream. Soft drinks. Fun for the kiddies.

All the far-flung Disney divisions, sub-sets and subsidiaries had booths and displays, touting their individual corners of Kingdom Mouse ...

The long rectangular interior space of the Frank Wells Palace was filled with booths and tables. Disney Feature Animation had a wall of Disney employee caricatures, digital story boards, demos going on. Pixar was down at the other end with the Wall-E presentation. The crowds were thick enough that it took me awhile to shoulder my way through the hubbub to Disney TVA.

Upstairs, work goes on for Phinneas and Ferb, Inspector Oso, the last of The Replacements. I spent a lot of time talking to board artists. One veteran told me how he was out of work for fourteen months, wondered if he should find another line of work, finally got back in to P and F. A designer was wrestling with getting a pose of the cartoon leads right, kept getting frustrated with the results, broke off to check political blogs.

More than one artist told me they intended to rush home at 5:30 to watch the Presidential debates. (Not a lot of support at DTVA for the current Commander-in-Chief. Hard to believe, innit?)

Hollywood used to have many in the left, but it wasn't totally Left. I've got several friends that don't talk about being a Republican because they'll loose jobs or already have. Sad to think that the people who always talk about the "Red Scare" and "Blacklisting" don't realize that they're doing the same..

The thoughts and observations of the leaders of The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 IATSE. Jason MacLeod is the Business Representative, KC Johnson is the President. Mike Sauer is Assistant to the Business Representative.

This weblog reflects their individual personal opinions and does not necessarily represent the official position of the Animation Guild.

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